


other winters, other suns

by cerva



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, I know I'm late, Mentioned suicide, Multi, but it's still January so yall are getting a hallmark winter moment from me, nothing graphic here tho, we might be breaking limbs who knows not me, we're accidentally or not accidentally falling in love, we're cuddling for warmth, we're getting snowed in, we're going to family vacation, we're pretending to date, we're rating it mature in case things get dicey or intimate for a moment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:21:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22288552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerva/pseuds/cerva
Summary: It's the holidays and Nico Minoru has seemingly returned from the near-dead to complicate the annual PRIDE winter family trip.orThe annual holiday fake-dating AU you'll sit through because none of us can resist the call of soulmates accidentally or not accidentally falling in love set to the backdrop of slopes, found family, and dummies being dummies.
Relationships: Chase Stein/Gertrude Yorkes, Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru
Comments: 17
Kudos: 108





	1. by ones

**Author's Note:**

> look, this is my AU and i'm stretching the details to give us those highs and lows we need during this szn. yell at me on here if you feel that or like anything else too, i'm here to listen. bring me your weary, your feels, your comments suggestions requests and/or protests. also just like overall thnks for listening to me obsessively project.

Karolina Dean’s lightning-light blue eyes flickered over the large black analog clock on the wall, the current master of her destiny, for what must have been the 47th time in the last 25 minutes. The remaining vestiges of her concentration were struggling to maintain their grip on retaining any information from her droning professor whose voice now vaguely buzzed in her ears. Her vision lingered, unfocused, somewhere just above her laptop screen where her facial expression could be mistaken for studious listening if not scrutinized too closely. One more class, one more online final which was more formality than anything else and then two weeks of school-free bliss.

Her parents and the other PRIDE families had opted to skip their usual extravagant holiday on the beach group vacation this year in favor of actually participating in winter at a lodge in Colorado. Her mind was already imagining the sun reflecting off miles and miles of brilliant white slopes when an alert flashed in the corner of her laptop screen. _No doubt someone else trying to remind us to read over break,_ she thinks, briefly waking from her daydream to scan over and read the notification.

Her pencil, which had been held between her teeth, clattered onto her desk, the equivalent of firing a gun in a crowded room as every head that been nodding off suddenly snapped to attention to find the source of the offending noise. Karolina hastily scooped it up and shrank down in her seat, mouthing _sorry sorry sorry_ to her classmates but not to her teacher who surprisingly seemed not to have heard a thing. The subject line was only two letters: _Hi_. From _nminoru_. Karolina felt the quick bottoming out of her stomach, her chest doused in ice water. The feeling disappears before she has a chance to really figure out why it was there, but it’s logged in her brain like a security breach. They haven’t spoken since Nico bolted for New York in the middle of the night three years ago. She even somehow managed to skip the last few years’ worth of family vacations, something Tina was ironclad silent about discussing and Robert had quartered himself off to the liquor cabinet for the majority of.

Karolina could open it. Right here and now. She could find out what could possibly make Nico break her radio silence. She could satisfy the part of her that needed to know how bad the damage was. But a part of her can’t bring herself to do it, wants to open it in private and not in this room that feels suddenly too big and too exposed. Her hand trembles slightly as she closes her laptop gingerly like a ticking explosive. 

* * *

The moment Nico’s hand makes contact with the enter button on her keyboard, she wants it back. She feels so stupid for possibly thinking she could ask Karolina for anything. That Karolina would even consider doing a damn thing, that she even should. It was Nico’s fault. Nico left. Nico chose flight.

The steady climb of pressure and grief in the year after Amy’s death had nearly crippled Nico. She functioned without all her faculties, coming alive with the occasional brief flash of anger and recklessness. When she finally broke, she didn’t call Gert, Molly, Chase, Alex, or Karolina. She bought a plane ticket and didn’t look back for fear of what she might or might not see. The “where are you,” “let us know you’re okay,” “we’re sending out a search party,” and finally “just call us please” trickled to a stop after six months.

Nico wandered the city alone for weeks. She met Victor Mancha, who asked far too many questions in her opinion, in a dive bar in broad daylight and somehow he managed to slip past Nico’s defenses at just the right moment. She went somewhat willingly to coffee with him and ended up his roommate through a series of events that no one quite understood. She sobbed on his couch the first week and refused to sleep in the bed they had personally dragged up multiple flights of stairs for her. She cried a little less after that, actually ate a few regular meals during the day, and met more people that seemed to care about her for no reason other than she was Victor’s friend and Victor’s friends were _family_ as far as they were concerned. She went back to school and mostly to back to herself eventually.

“Neeks, you in there?”

Her head snaps back around to a voice in the doorway of her room where Victor stands holding her mug of tea.

“Hey sorry, I was . . .”

“Wherever it was you just were, it wasn’t in this universe. I called your name three times before you answered. You okay?”

The answer isn’t readily available to her. She wants to automatically say yes, for it to be that easy. The longer she and Victor make eye contact, the less clear it seems to become and the more pressure she feels to get out some sort of explanation

“Yeah, I think so.”

He hands her the mug carefully.

“Next time I ask that, do try to be a little more convincing.” He seems to realize the point past discussion and gives her shoulder a squeeze before going back to the living room.

* * *

_She wants what? And me to do what?_ Karolina had read Nico’s email at least ten times and really only started actually being able to read the words on time 6 or 7. It’s too unreal, too confusing, too much to process from an email of all things (Karolina’s number has not changed so it creeps into the back of her mind that maybe Nico deleted it from her phone and she tries not to focus on how weird and terrible that thought feels even three years later).

_Hi._

_Uh. I know that I don’t need to write the word uh because it’s a space filler for actual out loud speech when a person needs time to figure out what they’re going to say next and as I’m typing this, where I can edit it in real time and not need to create artificial space for myself to think, I don’t actually need the word uh but it feels right? Sorry, I’m rambling. I know this is out of literally nowhere and if you actually end up opening this email that’ll be a miracle but I needed to try. Well, I guess what I really need is to talk to you about something. I’m going to be in town on Saturday and I was wondering if you’d be willing to see me? Like not from a distance, like you know for coffee or something. I understand if you’re busy or you know you don’t want to see me like ever again. Just let me know. Or if I don’t hear from you, also understandable and cool._

_Nico._

Karolina sits in a secluded corner of the library with Gert who is studying Nico’s correspondence like she’s going to write her thesis on it (and Karolina isn’t sure she won’t).

“Can you even read it from that close?”

“I’m just making sure that what I’m seeing is real. If it didn’t sound exactly like Nico, I’d say it was some sort of very terrible emotional phishing scam made by someone who clearly sold their soul to the evil deity of their choice.”

Karolina gives Gert a look that says _you’re not making this any easier for me_.

“You’re not actually considering going, are you?”

Karolina shrugs and deliberately makes eye contact with a floor tile. “I don’t know, maybe? I just got it a couple hours ago and Saturday is in two days so there’s a little lag time to . . .” She trails off and gestures vaguely to the air.

“So you’re going to let her just waltz back in here after three years so you two can have a private conversation about god knows what? I mean I understand she was being crushed under the weight of . . . everything but to just not say anything at all? Let us be terrified she was . . .” Gert doesn’t finish the sentiment. It feels like tempting fate to speak about death and another Minoru in the same sentence. “And what if she doesn’t show? What if it isn’t her and it’s a serial killer who wants to collect Malibu Barbie blondes for his Barbie Beach House?”

Karolina raises her eyebrows at her in a mixture of sadness and incredulousness. 

“You can take me and drop me off. If it goes sideways, you’ll be right there to catch me.”

Gert considers it for a few minutes.

“Come on, aren’t you curious to know what she has to say?”

Clearly tempted by the prospect of meddling, Gert finally nods. “Fine. But she gets 45 minutes to plead her case, no more.”

Karolina gives her a small smile and agrees to the terms. She emails Nico back and her reply is only a time and place:

_Timely. 2pm._


	2. by twos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's time for the talk™

They don’t tell anyone. Not Molly or Chase and certainly not Alex. Karolina spends much of the next two days defending her mind from imagining what Nico might say or do or what she herself might when Saturday at 2 pm rolls around. She puts on what seems to be a thousand different outfits to Gert’s dismay ( _what is this, a date?_ she says exasperatedly and Karolina looks so panicked that Gert immediately takes it back). She tries to find the perfect outfit for wading into the discomfort of whatever is happening.

She pauses with her hand over the car door handle when they pull up at 1:55. _Last chance to back out_ , her brain hums unhelpfully and she glances at Gert who gives her a signature _don’t know what you’re getting yourself into honestly_ look. She looks down at her hand and forces it to close around the lever and release herself from the vehicle.

“If it goes wrong, you know what to do.” Gert’s voice catches her as she steps out and Karolina nods resolutely.

Her feet refuse to walk at first, her brain radioing a signal to them that comes out fuzzy by the time it spreads along her muscles. Seeing Nico through the window gives her the sensation of motion sickness; there are too many moving parts moving far too quickly and Karolina can’t discern the fixed point of the horizon among the motion and noise. Nico’s still wearing darker tones but they’re muted. Unlike the last time Karolina saw her, she doesn’t look like one of her feet is firmly planted in the grave. She actually looks _healthy_. Nico was always small, mostly bones and not much else. She’s still all angles but the type designed by engineers, sleek and narrow but built on solid, deceptively strong bones. She doesn’t look like she will shatter if Karolina thinks about the wrong thing anymore. Karolina tries to get the world to stop spinning and right itself by focusing on Nico who, once flickering and unstable, now looks like a part of the landscape that Karolina can trust to stay right where it is.

The world then feels like it’s taken to tilting toward Nico, forcing Karolina to unstick her feet by the sheer force of gravity and she moves toward the door and her. There is a half second of hesitation with her hand on the door where Karolina thinks about turning around but it’s too late, Nico has seen her and stood up like her chair was electrified. She’s holding a beverage safely cupped between her hands. Karolina steps inside and walks toward her in something of a trance while Nico’s mouth looks like it’s trying to form words but no sound actually climbs out of it. She holds out the drink toward Karolina.

“I hope you still like –”

“London fog.” Karolina knows it by the smell before the cup touches her hand. She accepts it, carefully not to touch Nico’s fingers like they too might be electrified. The weight of the cup in her hands triggers the rest of Karolina’s brain to recover from its stunned state and she starts getting her bearings again, preparing to navigate whatever’s to come. Nico nods wordlessly and gestures to the chairs she’s commandeered for them in a corner of the shop.

“Thanks for agreeing to come.”

Karolina sits and places the cup on the table next to them. She crosses her arms over her chest, and Nico looks momentarily confused by her body language but she schools the expression away, as if realizing that she is indeed a possible threat to Karolina now which she is entitled to protect herself from.

“I’m – ” Nico barely gets the first word out before Karolina cuts her off.

“Gert will be back to pick me up in exactly 45 minutes so you probably should skip the small talk.” Nico winces a little and Karolina swallows at how harsh the words sound.

“I, ah, guess I deserve that,” Nico acquiesces slowly, twisting her hands in her lap. “I guess if I had to try to summarize it: I decided some time ago to pick up where . . . Amy and I left off.” She looks uncomfortable, like these words are private and kept under strict security inside her chest and opening this particular vault is dangerous beyond reason. “With, you know, preparing to takeover Wizard eventually.”

Karolina’s expression flickers, a glitch of grief she has clearly trained herself to bypass. Nico using Amy’s name feels like she has conjured a ghost in the air between them.

“And the first place I could think to start was to tell my parents. They were, well, you remember: vaguely surprised and clearly suspicious.” Karolina’s mouth twitches. Nico’s parents were always well-intentioned antagonists in Nico’s stories, chaotic neutrals even and Nico could never hold back from describing them that way. “Considering my history, they were not convinced that I wouldn’t just disappear again. And I got angry, trying to prove to them that it’s . . . not like that anymore. Then, and I’m not sure why it came out of me, but I told them we, you and I, reconnected. And –”

“When they heard reconnected, they thought –” Karolina finishes the sentence by gesturing between them. A crease has now appeared between her eyebrows and Nico feels the impending explosion speeding up so she powers on.

“Yeah, and I didn’t correct them? It just seemed to change things. And I . . . I really did want that,” She adds on, seemingly almost afraid the words won’t make the jump across the chasm between her mouth and Karolina’s ears. “I mean I _do_ want that. To reconnect. I thought if I could just start somewhere then I’d have at least half a chance to . . .” She doesn’t finish because she doesn’t know exactly what she’s trying to accomplish at the end of all of this, where exactly she wants to land. The old versions of her friends, her life, and herself are gone if indicated by nothing other than how different she and Karolina both appear today. Nico is mostly excavating, trying to figure out what’s left under the dust she left behind.

“So you thought you’d begin with a lie?” Karolina is far sharper with her than she remembered. This is a part of her Nico does not recognize fully, a part that must have filled out while Nico was gone. Maybe because Nico was gone. Nico’s expression compresses like it’s facing the blow of Karolina’s words.

“It wasn’t my ideal starting place, no,” Nico diverts. “I was just trying to get a handle on it and when I said it, they just sounded almost relieved?”

Karolina continues to assess Nico clinically and Nico feels terrible under it, like she deserves it which makes it even more painful.

“What exactly are you asking me to do here, Nico?”

Nico swallows hard like there’s a golfball in her throat. “I’m coming to the PRIDE winter family vacation this year and I,” Nico again looks like she’s struggling to dig the words out of a mineshaft that’s currently collapsing. “I was hoping you would consider going with me, like together. As a couple – a uh, pretend couple.”

Karolina cannot control the shock that paralyzes her features. _Do what, now?_

“You do understand that this idea is absolutely bonkers, right?” Karolina is looking at Nico like she has proposed that they rob this coffee shop they’re both currently in. “We haven’t spoken in years and now we’re going to show up to a family event and somehow convince people that have known us since birth that we’ve been secretly together for some undetermined amount of time without anyone noticing?”

Nico is suddenly concerned for Karolina’s eyebrows which are threatening to launch themselves into outer space.

“Anything sounds bad when you say it like that,” Nico tries to put a little bit of their easy banter back between them, like things used to be before. Karolina is unamused, to say the least.

“It’s not funny, Nico.” Nico mourns for how serious Karolina appears to have grown in her absence. “We are never going to be able to pull that off. I don’t know if we could have even three years ago.”

“Not with that attitude,” Nico cracks another joke in a tiny voice before holding up her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, I know that this is not something I should be asking you at all. I’m lucky you came.” Her voice is suddenly vulnerable in a way Karolina recognizes from before, how sometimes Nico’s emotions would squeeze out around the doors she tried to keep them locked behind. “I just had to try, you know?” She gives her a tiny smile, inviting another ghost to their meeting.

Karolina sits silent for a few minutes, taking deep breaths and looking at the latte Nico bought for her which is surely lukewarm by now. If Nico had to try then Karolina had to ask, right?

“What happens if I say yes?”

Nico looks up at her with more surprise than she had ever seen her express. “Well, we’re supposed to arrive at the lodge on Wednesday and I think it would be good for us to arrive together so I could arrange to be on your flight. And we could use the time to get, uh, reacquainted?” Nico looks uncomfortable at the last few words like she doesn’t want to describe it so mechanically.

“And if I say no?”

“I tell my parents I lied and go back to square negative one, and everyone gets to watch another terrible Minoru family holiday unfold but with a background of high grade slopes?”

Karolina doesn’t say anything so Nico continues. “You can say no right now if you want, I would not blame you. Or you can take a few days to think before you also say no.” Nico makes another joke that tugs on a place in Karolina’s chest she had almost forgotten was there. Karolina nods slowly while turning over her watch.

“Gert’s going to be here in less than a minute so I need to get outside before she comes crashing through the front wall in her eco-friendly sedan and we all end up on the ten o’clock news.” She stands a little unsteadily on her feet, under the weight of the new information. Nico stands, unsure of what to do next exactly.

“I’ll let you know.”

Nico nods and raises her hand lamely to wave goodbye. Karolina leaves her standing in the corner of the shop, the latte untouched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to get these first two chapters up relatively quick so yall would have something to chew on while i refine the next bits.


	3. by threes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i finally get them onto a plane and maybe we think about sharing our feelings and thoughts. MAYBE.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Gert’s voice is shrill enough, Karolina is certain nearby dogs are raising their ears in alert. “Nico Minoru is trying to recruit you to act as her girlfriend in the performance art piece of a lifetime? Tell me, was she also wearing a jacket full of knock-off watches and asking you to buy into her pyramid scheme?”  
  
Karolina tilts her head toward her from her position at her desk across her bedroom from Gert. “She seemed sincere. You didn’t hear her talk about . . . Amy.”  
  
Gert’s rant comes skidding to a halt and she seems to consider her next words carefully. “Oh no. You’re really thinking about agreeing to this doomed plan?”

Karolina shrugs. “I never was great at saying no to her.”  
  
_Time seems to have done little to change that_ , Karolina thinks to herself.

“If it fails, there’s not a whole lot left to lose but if it succeeds . . .” Karolina trails off because what does succeeding in this situation even mean? Do they get Nico back and what exactly does “getting Nico back” mean? Does Karolina have to remain her fake girlfriend for some undetermined amount of time then they have to go through some orchestrated break-up? Does Nico go to work at Wizard and becomes as much of a tense, workaholic as her parents?

Cross-legged on the bed, Gert watches Karolina intently in the soft light as if noting which gears in Karolina’s brain are going what direction and at what speed. Gert’s expression softens some because, well, Nico was her friend too and despite her apprehension, she wants her back in their lives too.

They’re silent for a long time before Gert asks, “So should we prepare pre-approved plane talking points and logistics, and a contingency plan in case you need to ditch her in Denver?”

Karolina mouth twitches upward on one side into a slight smile and she closes her textbook to devote her full attention to Gert’s strategy briefing.

* * *

Nico nearly falls out of bed when her phone _dings_ at 1:30 on Sunday morning in her hotel room. She had been lying tensely awake, alternating between trying to prevent her itching fingers from checking her phone incessantly and goaltending her mind from spiraling thoughts about the mess she had managed to create this time. Nico had been so hypersensitive after her meeting with Karolina that she swore many times in the hours since that she had both seen and heard her phone go off only to pick it up and be reminded for the thousandth time that she had _no missed alerts_. Despair and the slow loss of her mind were beginning to set in when her phone finally blazed to life with a burst of brightness in the dark room that she could not have possibly imagined.  
  
She hastily slaps at her bedside table for her phone and when she sees Karolina’s name lit up across the display, her hand temporarily loses any sense of coordination and drops it directly onto her right eye. She hisses a curse with her hand over her eye, hoping beyond hope she hasn’t given herself a black eye she will have to explain, especially not to Karolina.

The pain is quickly forgotten and her brain quickly moves on to the overwhelming squeeze of panic which reminds her that she still needs to open the message. She has to enter her passcode twice before she can calm her trembling fingers enough to unlock her phone. The first text is just a seemingly cryptic string of letters and numbers that Nico has to really focus her vision on before she can comprehend that it’s Karolina’s flight information. The second message is only three words.

**karolina dean  
** _see you soon._

She lays her phone face down on her sternum while she tries to get her heart to slow down and stop churning like an off-balance washing machine. Karolina had been nearly unreadable earlier, and Nico had started to consider how it was possible to lose someone a second time when you hadn’t even been able to get them back in the first place.

It’s the emptying of wondering whether she had ruined everything in a single go from her chest that frees Nico up to feel what’s inevitably coming next. She can feel herself planting her first step to begin crossing her rubicon and the rush of the current against her body says clearly _you asked for it, brace yourself._

Nico releases a deep breath and murmurs into the darkness, “Shit.”

* * *

When Nico sees Karolina two days later at an ungodly hour of the morning, she’s so bleary-eyed that Nico is surprised she even made it to the airport. She shuffles slowly along with a magnetic gait and Nico begins to wonder if she will make it to their gate before boarding begins. She hasn’t noticed Nico yet so Nico has time to watch her and remember what feels like a lifetime of memories of travelling with her. Once, a younger Nico had convinced a younger Karolina to stay up all night since their flight was so early that it was “barely worth it to sleep before anyway” and then realized her mistake as she struggled to drag a semi-unconscious Karolina and her impossibly heavy bag through Heathrow.  
  
Nico stands at attention again as she nears, holding a warm caffeine offering. _Second time’s the charm, right?_ her brain chimes in.

Karolina closes one eye and tries to focus on her with the other, coming slowly to a stop and saying, “Good morning, are you going to try to buy my graces with caffeine every time we see each other now?”

Nico is shocked that a voice still so thick with sleep was still somehow impossibly sharp. Her mouth opens and closes several times, doing an incredibly realistic impression of a fish out of water.

“Sorry,” Karolina catches herself quickly, squeezing her eyes shut and opening them again. “I do need that. Thank you.”

Nico extends her arm with the drink to Karolina and takes a deep steadying breath, _oh boy._

An hour and a half later, they board their plane with Nico in the lead. As they near their seats, she steps out of the way in the aisle to allow Karolina into the inner seat. Karolina raises her eyebrows slightly before settling down next to the window.

“If I remember correctly, you hate the aisle seat,” Karolina says, tilting her head toward Nico. “Something about being a target for low-flying elbows.”

“Yeah.” Nico replies, grabbing things out of her bag and securing it under the seat in front of her without looking up. “And you love the window seat.”

Karolina watches Nico for a moment, feeling distinct déjà vu wash over her. It’s _Nico logic_ she hasn’t heard in ages and somehow Nico was able to still speak it like a 4th language (Karolina is relatively sure her Japanese and French are still razor sharp). To Nico, the exchange seems to make perfect sense but it leaves Karolina wondering who exactly the girl next to her is now. She hadn’t really accounted for the fact that some parts of Nico are very much still . . . _Nico_. She thought their time spent apart should have likely made them mostly strangers to each other but as her eyes travel curiously over Nico’s face, Karolina senses that in some ways they are too much a part of each other to ever really be strangers again.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” Nico’s voice breaks her reverie as she catches her staring.

“No, sorry I just zoned out for a second,” Karolina quickly recovers, shaking her head a little. “Early mornings aren’t my exactly my primetime.”

“Yeah, I seem to remember that,” Nico quirks a corner of her mouth. “All of Heathrow probably too.”

Karolina laughs and feels herself relax some. “You know, I have wondered a lot over the years if that wasn’t just a very bad dream.”

“Maybe for you,” Nico quips. “Definitely not for me and the full body workout I received from the experience.”

The pair exchange grins as the pilot and flight attendants begin their pre-takeoff routine.

* * *

A short time later, they find themselves in the air speeding toward Denver. Drink service for the flight has begun and the caffeine is once again flowing abundant. The lightheartedness of their earlier conversation unfortunately hadn’t the staying power to last and a precarious quiet has fallen over them, mostly filled with the seemingly now blaring noise of them swallowing their coffee.

In some respects, faking a relationship was a lot like a group project. Everyone had a stake and a role to play. There were concrete details, definite timelines, facts, and figures that could be charted and logged like data. But then there was the humanistic domain, the part where history and foresight intersected, the part where knowing where you had been was vitally important to telling the future about what what you would do next. Knowing where you had your first date and who was bold enough to ask was simple compared to figuring out how to get know someone for a second time.

Karolina starts and hard stops several times, taking several breaths through her mouth rather than beginning an actual sentence. The questions that would help best explain how they ended back up in each other’s arms are loaded with fuses and triggers she can’t bypass without risking life and limb in the process. While she has grown some callus in the last couple years, she’s no where near blunt enough to pointedly ask, “Hey, want to tell me about the likely traumatic and life-altering things that happened to you in the last three years?” Is she supposed to start some kind of small-talk, tell-you-about-distant-relatives-you-don’t-know-or-care-about starter line instead?

Nico, on the other hand, is running her fingers over her cup like a magic lamp that will grant her the perfect thing to say. Her stomach is bubbling with the regret of getting them into this inevitable mess. There are thousands of miles of details stretching between them, ones Nico herself has only come to terms with recently. Everything she thinks of saying feels like too much and also not even close to enough.

It’s the spark of what’s probably her third cup of coffee of the morning that gives Nico the courage to finally coerce sounds from her mouth.

“I think it would have been you,” Nico says to her hands before lifting her eyes to Karolina’s. “I think you would have been the one to make the jump and ask me out. You were always braver than me about things like that.”

Karolina’s head turns sharply toward her and her jaw moves from side to side a little before her shoulders go up into a tiny, knowing shrug.

“I don’t know, you seem to be getting pretty bold now.” And Nico swears her impossibly blue eyes crackle with a slight warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, sorry about the time lapse between chapters. things have been . . . well they have been things but here's something to chew on. also sorry there's so much exposition, i promise we'll get like action and fumbling over ourselves at a near point in the future.


	4. by fours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> driving, catching up™, and eating ice cream in the winter.

They decide upon a number of facts: It started six months ago when Nico made her first trip back to the west coast in three years, a daunting first step that had taken countless hours of meditation for Nico to even begin to consider (which was mostly true, Nico did get on a plane six months ago to figure out if she could even still breathe in California’s atmosphere anymore). Everything had been delicate and tentative. Nico almost hadn’t made it to Karolina’s door at all but Karolina had spotted her standing next to her car in the street while taking out the garbage and once she had been seen, there was no being unseen. Things were stop and go, halting many times on either end and keeping Nico’s reentrance just between them was the option that kept things moving forward. And falling for each other? Well, you can’t really deny the inevitability of two people with that kind of history finding their way into each other’s arms. And they do decide that Karolina asked Nico out (and that Nico was well on her way to do the same but Karolina just got there first, just barely).

When they’re finally on the ground in Colorado and loading their bags into their rental SUV, Nico finds herself a little freaked out by how right everything seems. Her head spins a bit from how logically their pieces seem to fit together and as she looks up from buckling her seatbelt in the passenger’s seat, she lingers on the thought and Karolina for just a second too long and Karolina catches her, raising her eyebrows just slightly. Nico shakes her head dismissively as if to say _nothing_ to Karolina’s unasked question and turns her eyes to the windshield. Karolina lowers her eyebrows and turns her attention to driving, very clearly aware that the future communication between them likely contains a lot of silence and furtive glances.

The ghost of comfort lingers between them during the ride. Karolina fills in a sparknotes version of the past three years to bring Nico up to date: Chase and Gert’s unnecessarily drawn out journey to finally being together, Molly maturing and seeming to catch up with all of them overnight, Alex’s eventual return to himself and them. She also gives the barest summary of her dating history (including honorable mention only of two ill-fated dates with Chase that were so awkward they have both tried to block them from their memories completely). Nico swallows hard when she realizes that Karolina had come out while she was gone, that Nico hadn’t been there for that. In fact, her throat feels impossibly dry listening to Karolina recount their lives during the time she wasn’t with them. Her heart clenches uncomfortably thinking of how she wasn’t there for any of them for three years’ worth of changes.

Maybe Karolina hears the sound of Nico's chest squeezing her heart like a trash compactor, maybe she just feels exhausted from having to basically lecture for the better part of forty-five minutes but she mercifully brings the crushing play-by-play to a close. She says nothing else for fifteen more minutes before asking, “you still like expresso ice cream?”

Nico’s body reacts like a too-tightly wound trap from the preceding build of tension and at her words, she visibly jumps.

“What?” She asks, trying to give her brain time to catch up and decipher Karolina’s words.

“There’s a place near here with an ironically excellent ice cream selection that my dad took me to a few times when I was younger.” She pauses, pressing her lips together. “I don’t really think I should encourage you to have any more caffeine judging by how jumpy you are, but we definitely need a boost before we walk into the valley of doubt.”

Nico nods. She takes a moment to admire how steady Karolina is in this moment, how she reads the churning waters around them and keeps their tiny boat from capsizing. It feels like another blindsiding reminder that Karolina kept moving as a person while Nico was gone, just another item the list of things her absence might have contributed to.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later they are tucked into the corner of what could be described as an ice cream emporium, gazing out of the tall store-front glass windows. They sit across from each other, digging into their bowls of expresso and mint chocolate chip and trying to reconcile the idea of eating ice cream in 30 degree weather.

“Better?” Karolina asks, looking up from excavating a particularly large chocolate chip.

Nico nods a little shakily. “Hard not to be with how incredible this ice cream is. I feel like I’m eating an expresso cloud.”

Karolina smiles around her bite of ice cream. “I was skeptical when my dad suggested it the first time. I wasn’t used to the cold and the idea of more of it wasn’t my idea of improving the situation but somehow, it works.”

Nico imagines a tiny Karolina, all blonde hair and blue eyes in a color-blocked puffy jacket, looking doubtfully at a mountain of green ice cream and she smiles.

Karolina finishes half of her bowl, pauses with a surveying glance out into the overcast flurrying afternoon, and then places her left hand onto the table toward Nico. Nico catches the motion out of the corner of her eye and turns her head quickly back to the table. Karolina makes eye contact with her before flicking her eyes to her hand and back with a slight tilt of her head.

It takes Nico a moment to process what exactly those things mean in combination and her mouth opens slightly as she hesitates.

“I know we haven’t talked about boundaries but I don’t think we’re going to get away with not touching at all.” Karolina attempts to dispel some of the tension. When Nico still looks uncertainly at her hand for a few more minutes, Karolina adds: “Nico, you need to hold my hand. Right now. If you can’t, we don’t have to go through with this. I’ll — I can still help but we need to know what we’re walking into.”

Nico takes takes a deep, steadying breath and moves her trembling hand into Karolina’s. It’s, unsurprisingly, warm and softer than soft.

“That feel okay?” She asks gently, studying Nico. When Nico nods an affirmative, she moves her thumb slowly across her knuckles. The more minutes they sit like this, the more Nico’s body begins to relax in tiny increments. In her peripheral vision, she notices several people with their heads turned in she and Karolina’s general direction.

“People are going to look.” Karolina says in a knowing way that tells Nico this isn’t the first time this has happened. “You okay with that?”

Anger breaks through a suddenly appearing crack in the wall of her trepidation and she feels a surge of spouting ire that Karolina has gone through this and probably worse before. The blossoming of that spurs her to squeeze Karolina’s hand and say, “they can look all they like.”

Karolina leans back with a slowly spreading smile. “Ah, there she is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again for sticking with me yall. i generally write a lot more on the poetry and prose end of things and haven't stretched my story muscles in awhile so truly thanks for watching your girl do some weak pushups on the way to bigger and better things.


	5. by fives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we take a brief tour inside nico's head and arrive at the lodge finally.

Returning to the vehicle after their ice cream excursion, Nico feels less edgy; like Karolina has bailed some of the water out of her rapidly sinking boat and for the moment she will live to float a little longer. She wants to let herself be comforted by Karolina’s initiative, but the ease she manages to feel is tempered by the addition of another subtle weight between her lungs.

Nico tries to focus on the quiet landscape around them, tries to find the tip of a tall evergreen tree where she can climb above her panic and figure out what, beyond the obvious, is preventing her from gaining any kind of a foothold. She imagines shedding layers of flight instinct and guilt as she climbs to the top, freeing her to move without resistance. And there at the peak, it’s silent and even the wind stills around her.

The thing she has been afraid to think is suddenly clear without the noise of all her other emotions: she’s still standing with one foot outside the door, ready to bolt because it all feels like betrayal and coercion and privilege she doesn’t deserve. It feels like analytically reconstructing her life and Karolina, everyone really, is in the middle of it. It reminds her of her mother, how business-like even her relationships were. How life was always some sort of ladder to climb. She’s hesitant to commit because of the untruth of it and the way it feels like what’s lost has already been buried.

Karolina is carrying them forward, pure of heart driving the way as it always has with her. And Nico has lagged behind because of the gravity of that, of what it means to try fully again.

Nico nearly imperceptibly shakes her head, trying to right the world in light of this. She wants a future that contains Karolina and her friends and her family; she wants a future where she gets a chance to fix the world that Amy’s death seemed to finally break completely.

And that can start, she thinks, with finding her way back to them.

So she resolves to stop being dead weight.

* * *

Karolina and Nico lug their bags into the foyer, dropping them with an exhale on the rug across the wood floor. Nico casts her eyes around the private lodge and sees that true to PRIDE tradition, no expense seems to have been spared. The short hallway leads down a few steps into den with couches and chairs gratuitously covered with all variety of blankets and pillows. A full kitchen lies to the left and a dining room to the right. The far walls are less walls and more a looking glass out onto the gracefully sloping landscape, drifting up to the vaulted ceiling. Dual stairways lead up to a set of bedrooms on both wings.

They share a slightly uncomfortable look that says _PRIDE wealth strikes again_. As they are the last to arrive, a whole clatter of familiar voices approaches to greet them. Nico shoots Karolina another glance that she hopes says firmly _I’m here now_ and then turns back to face the incoming parade of awkward reunions, curiosity, and vague suspicion.

The PRIDE parents manage a series of uncoordinated greetings that do convey warmth around awkward navigation of Nico’s previous absence. Her parents perform a solemn, arm’s length welcome that Nico notices her father visibly itching to break but thinking better of it.

Molly is, comfortingly, the most enthusiastic to see her and the first to wrap her up in a hug that feels like not even the pull of a black hole could remove her from it. Gert is notably suspicious, but it mingles with her normal level of sharp wit and Nico feels like she has received a pass from her for the moment. Chase, another member of the pure of heart club along with Karolina, grabs her shoulder and gives her a shake for good measure. Alex, the last and most hesitant somehow, makes brief eye contact while giving a short wave and nod.

It’s only the first obstacle on the course, but making it through the gauntlet of introductions for Nico feels like jumping into cold water and managing to acclimate without freezing to death. It’s pins-and-needles uncomfortable but the building confidence of one successful interaction spreads warm through her body.

Nico makes for Karolina’s side and slips their hands together. Karolina bluescreens for a second with surprise, but quickly moves her features into a pleased smile and squeezes her hand twice.

“We should really get our things out of the way,” Karolina announces, moving to lift her bags.

Nico has hers halfway off the ground when Molly winks and says, “we saved a room for you lovebirds to the right.”

Nico nearly lets her bags slip completely out of her hands, only barely catching them on reflex. _She had forgotten about the sleeping arrangements._ Karolina blushes but keeps her bags steady in her arms and just makes for the right stairwell.

* * *

Nico plops down in a reading nook in their room the moment they are alone and covers her face with her hands. “I think that went, you know, really well.”

Karolina leans against the bed and slides down onto the floor. “I’m too tired to tell if that’s sarcasm or not.”

Nico speaks through her hands again. “How many more days is this trip again?”

Karolina laughs, and Nico smiles through her fingers at the sound.

“Oh, more than enough for us to find a way to spectacularly crash and burn.” Karolina responds. “On a serious note, we should talk about . . . guidelines but maybe like tomorrow. We’ve both been through a lot today.”

Nico nods through her hands. Karolina moves to get up and begin unpacking when Nico speaks, “Karolina?”

She stops and turns back toward her. “Yeah?”

“Thanks. You, uh, had a lot of good reasons to turn me away and you didn’t.”

Karolina freezes for a moment in thought, appearing to choose her words carefully.

“Just because there are a lot of good reasons not to do something doesn’t mean there aren’t also good reasons to do it,” She replies before continuing toward her bag, unaware that her words have left Nico’s brain spinning and flashing like a carnival ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi yall, sorry it's been some time. i got some very good news which also came with a lot of paperwork and stress so i've been off in that for a few weeks now. we're all going through it right now so i wanted to get an update out there to maybe give yall a little place to escape to for a bit. we're fast approaching the downhill portion of this ride so buckle up!! I'm hoping to get to some meatier, longer chapters so thank u for your patience so far.
> 
> take care of yourselves and don't forget to love yourself and others in these trying times.


End file.
